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There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over the Rublyovka highway on a winter evening. Behind the tall fences and guarded gates, Russia’s ultra-rich—almost exclusively men—are not simply enjoying the spoils of a free market. They are locked into…

In the West, the word “oligarch” usually paints a picture of dirty money, London mansions, and superyachts. But inside Russia, the bond between massive private fortunes and the Kremlin is something else entirely—something more deliberate and far more cynical. This…

In the sprawling, often contradictory narrative of post-Soviet Russia, the oligarch is a figure of both immense power and profound vulnerability. To the Western eye, they are the swashbuckling robber barons of a new era, men who grabbed state assets…

In the sprawling, often contradictory landscape of Russian political economy, the word “oligarch” paints a very specific picture. It’s a term that evokes superyachts moored off Monaco, London townhouses bought through shell companies, and a gilded class that crawled from…

In the murky, often contradictory architecture of Russian power, the oligarch occupies a strange and paradoxical position. He is at once a product of the state’s chaotic retreat in the 1990s and a creature entirely dependent on its current, rigid…